Pop Goes the Weasel

There are many different versions of the lyrics to the song. In England, most share the basic verse:

Half a pound of tuppenny rice,

Half a pound of treacle.

That’s the way the money goes,

Pop! goes the weasel.^[1]

Often a second verse is added:

Every night when I get home

The monkey's on the table,

Take a stick and knock it off,

Pop! goes the weasel.^[1]

This song can only be traced back to the mid-nineteenth century, when a music sheet acquired by the British Library in 1853 described a dance, 'Pop! Goes the Weasel', which was, according to the music sheet, 'An Old English Dance, as performed at Her Majesty's & The Nobilities Balls, with the Original Music'. It had a tune very similar to that used today and only the words "Pop! Goes the Weasle".^[1] There is evidence that several people tried to add lyrics to the popular tune. The following verse had been written by 1856 when it was quoted in a performance at the Theatre Royal:

Up and down the City Road

In and out the Eagle

That's the way the money goes

Pop! goes the weasel.^[1]

The song seems to have crossed the Atlantic in the 1850s where US newspapers soon afterwards call it "the latest English dance", and the phrase "Pop! goes the weasel" soon took hold.^[2] The remaining lyrics were still unstable in Britain, and as a result some of the US lyrics are significantly different and may have an entirely different source, but use the same tune.^[2] The following lyrics were printed in Boston in 1858:

All around the cobbler's house,

The monkey chased the people.

And after them in double haste,

Pop! goes the weasel.^[3]

In 1901 in New York the opening lyric was:

All around the chicken coop,

The possum chased the weasel.^[3]

The most common recent version was not recorded until 1914. In addition to the three verses above, American versions often include some of the following:

All around the Mulberry Bush,

The monkey chased the weasel.

The monkey stopped to pull up his sock, (or The monkey stopped to scratch his nose)

Pop! goes the weasel.

Half a pound of tuppenny rice,

Half a pound of treacle.

Mix it up and make it nice,

Pop! goes the weasel.

Contemporary verses in the United States include these:

All around the mulberry bush (or cobbler's bench)

The monkey chased the weasel;

The monkey thought 'twas all in fun, (or "'twas all in good sport") (or "that it was a joke")

Pop! goes the weasel.

A penny for a spool of thread,

A penny for a needle—

That's the way the money goes,

Pop! goes the weasel.

Jimmy's got the whooping cough

And Timmy's got the measles

That's the way the story goes

Pop! goes the weasel.

There are numerous American versions^[4] as printed in Vance Randolph, Ozark Folksongs, Volume III, pp. 368-369. Randolph's #556, the A text. Collected 1926 from Mrs. Marie Wilbur of Pineville, Missouri.

In Britain the rhyme has been played as a children's game since at least the late nineteenth century. The game is played to the "first" verse quoted above. Several rings are formed and they dance around as the verse is sung. One more players than the number of rings are designated as "weasels", all but one standing in the rings. When the "Pop! goes the weasel" line is reached they have to rush to a new ring before anyone else can. The one that fails is eliminated and the number of circles is reduced by one until there is only one weasel left.^[1]

Perhaps because of the obscure nature of the lyrics there have been many suggestions for their significance, particularly over the meaning of the phrase 'Pop! goes the weasel', including: that it is a tailor's flat iron, a hatter's tool, a clock reel used for measuring in spinning,^[5] a piece of silver plate, or that 'weasel and stoat' is Cockney rhyming slang for 'coat', which is 'popped or pawned' to visit or after visiting the Eagle pub, that it is a mishearing of weevil or vaisselle, that it was a nickname of James I, and that 'rice' and 'treacle' are slang terms for potassium nitrate and charcoal and that therefore the rhyme refers to the gunpowder plot.

Other than correspondences, none of these theories has any additional evidence to support it, and some can be discounted because of the known history of the song.^[1] Iona and Pete Opie observed that, even at the height of the dance craze in the 1850s no-one seemed to know what the phrase meant.^[1]

It is probable that the "Eagle" mentioned in the song's third verse refers to The Eagle freehold pub at the corner of Shepherdess Walk and City Road mentioned in the same verse.^[6][7] The Eagle was an old pub in City Road, London, which was re-built as a music hall in 1825, demolished in 1901, and then rebuilt as a public house.^[8] This public house bears a plaque with this interpretation of the nursery rhyme and the pub's history.

• Extensive lyrics, with chords, on Kristin's site at MIT
• World Wide Words, Michael Quinion: POP GOES THE WEASEL (June 2004)
• Scroll to "Pop Goes the Weasel" to see how it is used by algebra teachers to help students remember the quadratic formula."
• Public domain version from 1853 arranged by Charley Twiggs on IMSLP.org